Abstract/Summary

Landscape ecology focuses on the analysis of spatial pattern and its relationship to
ecological processes. As a scientifi c discipline, landscape ecology has grown rapidly in recent years,
supported by developments in GIS and spatial analysis techniques. Although remote sensing data
are widely employed in landscape ecology research, their current and potential roles have not been
evaluated critically. To provide an overview of current practice, 438 research papers published in
the journal Landscape Ecology for the years 2004–2008 were examined for information about use
of remote sensing. Results indicated that only 36% of studies explicitly mentioned remote sensing.
Of those that did so, aerial photographs and Landsat satellite sensor images were most commonly
used, accounting for 46% and 42% of studies, respectively. The predominant application of remote
sensing data across these studies was for thematic mapping purposes. This suggests that landscape
ecologists have been relatively slow to recognize the potential value of recent developments in
remote sensing technologies and methods. The review also provided evidence of a frequent lack
of key detail in studies recently published in Landscape Ecology, with 75% failing to provide any
assessment of uncertainty or error relating to image classifi cation and mapping. It is suggested
that the role of remote sensing in landscape ecology might be strengthened by closer collaboration between researchers in the two disciplines, by greater integration of diverse remote sensing data
with ecological data, and by increased recognition of the value of remote sensing beyond land-cover
mapping and pattern description. This is illustrated by case studies drawn from Latin America
(focusing on forest loss and fragmentation) and the UK (focusing on habitat quality for woodland
birds). Such approaches might improve the analytical and theoretical rigour of landscape ecology, and
be applied usefully to issues of outstanding societal interest, such as the impacts of environmental
change on biodiversity and ecosystem services.